The acquisition of Legend Smelting and Recycling follows Elemental taking a controlling stake in PGM of Texas at the end of 2019 and its purchase of Maryland Core Inc. earlier this year.
Elemental Holding Group has acquired catalyst recycler Legend Smelting and Recycling (LSR), which is headquartered in Hebron, Ohio.
LSR has been in business for 40 years and has locations in Ohio, California, Illinois, Indiana and Texas. The company sources catalytic converters and nonferrous scrap, including lead-acid batteries, copper wire, radiators, starters and transmissions, from across North America, including Mexico, and had sales of nearly $250 million in 2020, according to a news release from Elemental about the purchase.
LSR says it can grade, cut, mill and assay converter material under a single roof.
Elemental Holding Group is a manufacturer of strategic raw materials sourced through the processing of end-of-life electronics, catalytic converters, printed circuit boards and nonferrous scrap metals. It operates in 15 countries across three continents: Europe, Asia and North America.
Elemental Holding says that with the purchase of LSR, its investments in the U.S. market have reached nearly $100 million. In December 2019, the group took over a controlling stake in PGM of Texas, which has a large purchasing network with 12 locations across the United States, as well as a processing plant and a chemical laboratory. Elemental also finalized its purchase of Maryland Core Inc. this spring.
Krzysztof Spyra, a management board member at Elemental Holding, says, “The growing awareness of the global industry in the fields of ESG (environmental, social and governance), computerization, electrification of the automotive industry, hydrogen technologies and the shift towards renewable energy sources generate a huge demand for precious metals, including platinum group metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium), as well as copper group metals (silver, gold). Boosting the recycling of all these crucial metals is key to meeting the growing technological and environmental challenges globally.”
He adds, “By bringing together worldwide operating companies, we invest in the latest technologies to ensure that the production process of strategic raw materials is fully sustainable and follows the best ESG practices. Further strengthening our position in the U.S. market is an important step towards creating a global urban mining leader in the segments of strategic ‘green metals’ production and the recycling of PGMs, electronics (gold, silver, copper, aluminum) and e-mobility (nickel, cobalt, lithium).”
EAF steelmaker sees construction market as potential reason to build new mill in eastern U.S.
Australia-based steelmaker BlueScope Steel Ltd. reportedly is considering building a new electric arc furnace (EAF) mill on the East Coast of the United States, in part because of an optimistic outlook for the U.S. construction sector.
Citing a BlueScope investors’ webcast, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) says the planned mill’s output would support BlueScope painted and coated steel products that are part of its Buildings North America business unit.
AFR says BlueScope Chief Executive Mark Vassella indicated any new EAF investment was likely to be in the form of a greenfield location since current mill operators are seeking high bids to sell any existing assets.
An investor briefing pack prepared by BlueScope and available on its website indicates its Buildings North America operation serves a customer base of more than 2,000 builders who use BlueScope products and “proprietary design software in the construction segment to win work and add value in the construction process.”
“What gives us confidence to investigate [a new mill] is it’s a very large market,” AFR quotes Vassella as saying about the end market for steel produced at an East Coast EAF plant.
On the melt shop raw materials side, the BlueScope briefing pack refers to a “strong existing supply base in North Star’s region [for] both prime and obsolete scrap.”
BlueScope seemingly has committed to remaining part of the U.S. mill sector with a $1 billion expansion underway at its BlueScope North Star EAF mill in Delta, Ohio. That expansion is slated for completion next year.
Company’s ITAD facility certified to R2v3 standard.
Singapore-based IT asset disposal (ITAD) company TES says its Seattle facility has become among the first in the world to earn the R2v3 certification, the most recent iteration of the Responsible Recycling Standard (R2).
“The new R2v3 certification sets the highest standards, and adherence to those standards validates TES as a trusted and responsible ITAD partner,” states the company
Maintained by the Washington-based Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI), the standard is a set of voluntary operational practices based on independent audits. The Seattle facility of TES has become one of the first facilities in the world to secure the recent third edition of the certification, according to TES.
TES says R2v3 “places a stronger emphasis on data protection, which includes meeting the demands of prevailing laws on environmental health and safety and information security, many of which are interconnected.” (More information on how TES sees R2V3 fitting into its future can be found on this web page.)
“The regulatory environment in the last five years has probably had more movement than the previous 15 years before that, in terms of global regulations, the Basel Convention, regional regulations, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), local in-country regulation; it’s all interconnected,” says Eric Ingebretsen, chief commercial officer of TES.
EAF steelmaker lists Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia as potential sites for new 3-million-ton-per-year mill.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Nucor Corp. says it will build a 3 million-ton-per-year electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill in one of three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania or West Virginia. The announcement comes just three days after Pittsburgh-based United States Steel Corp. announced its intention to install EAF capacity on a similar scale in the Southeast.
Nucor says its board of directors has approved the construction of what it calls a state-of-the-art sheet mill with 3 million tons per year of capacity. “Nucor is evaluating locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia,” states the EAF steelmaker.
“The new mill will be geographically situated to serve customers in the Midwest and Northeast markets and will have a significantly lower carbon footprint than nearby competitors,” adds Nucor.
“This greenfield sheet mill complements Nucor’s existing operations, allowing us to more effectively service customers in the region and grow our core business while creating substantial value for our shareholders,” says Leon Topalian, Nucor president and CEO. “This mill will allow us to competitively meet the growing need that many of our customers, particularly in the automotive market, have for high-quality steel with a lower carbon footprint,” he adds.
The new sheet mill is expected to cost approximately $2.7 billion and will be able to produce hot-rolled sheet products with downstream processing including a tandem cold mill, annealing capabilities and two galvanizing lines. Nucor predominantly uses scrap metal to feed its furnaces, though the firm also produces direct reduced iron (DRI) at a plant in Louisiana.
Once a site is selected and after permitting and other regulatory approvals are received, construction is expected to take two years, Nucor says.
“The green and digital economy is being built with steel, and Nucor, as one of the cleanest steelmakers in the world, is poised to be able to meet these unique opportunities,” Topalian says.
The Azcapotzalco Transfer Station and Sorting Plant officially opened July 25.
Mexico City’s Azcapotzalco Transfer Station and Sorting Plant has officially opened its doors July 25 in an event that was attended by political leaders from around the region. With this facility, Mexico City’s government is moving toward correctly treating urban waste based on a circular economy concept.
Altshausen, Germany-based Stadler supplied the technology for the Azcapotzalco Transfer Station and Sorting Plant.
“We would like to thank Mexico City for allowing us to give our contribution and take part in the great challenge of reducing waste in Mexico City, one of the most populated megacities in the world, where more than 12,000 tons of waste are generated every day,” says Natalya Duarte, sales director for Mexico at Stadler.
According to a news release from Stadler, this plant is Mexico’s first government-owned automated plant for separation and treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW). The 11,000-square-meter facility sorts mixed paper, old corrugated containers (OCC), multilayer packaging, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), plastic bags, films, aluminum cans, metallized bags, textiles, glass and other metal scrap. The plant was commissioned in May and operates in conjunction with a transfer station to process about 1,000 tons per day of scrap from the municipalities of Cuauhtémoc, Gustavo A. Madero, Miguel Hidalgo and Azcapotzalco, and will be able to receive up to 1,400 metric tons of scrap per day. The facility provides 404 jobs for the community.
Pro Ambiente, a subsidiary of Cemex, manages the facility. Pro Ambiente has more than 25 years of experience in waste management and in operating plants for the selection and recovery of waste-derived fuels.
“We are proud to participate in this new project, which is in line with our sustainability and emission reduction objectives,” says José Guillermo Díaz, Cemex’s manager of technology and alternative fuels. “We are prepared to operate this plant under a model that guarantees, first and foremost, the safety of all our employees, operational continuity through maintenance and production programs with international standards and sorting quality to ensure a greater use of the waste generated in Mexico City.”
The use of mechanical treatment between transfer and final disposal was a fundamental and natural first step in the zero-waste management program of Mexico City’s current administration, Stadler reports. The objective was to capture and sort all recyclable packaging within the transfer station itself.
According to Stadler, the company has been involved in four major recycling projects in Mexico, including this one in Azcapotzalco.
Duarte adds that the Azcapotzalco plant is special for several reasons. She says the innovative sorting technology enables the plant to move from a manual sorting process to an automatic sorting process to ensure higher recovery efficiency and material purity. She says the process also is professionalized and industrialized.
“Stadler’s innovative sorting technology makes sense both in terms of the efficiency achieved in the recovery process and the high degree of purity of the materials obtained,” Duarte says. “It professionalizes and industrializes this waste management process, providing working conditions for manual sorters that are comparable to those of any first-world plant.
She continues, “It is worth noting that automation does not displace human resources. It is possible to achieve a perfect balance between the two, which is key for the Mexican market. We clearly showed that it is so in this project in Mexico City, where the balance between technology and human resources improves the numbers from a public administration point of view and optimizes the operational cost of this type of recycling plant.”